Prompt 52--Lockpick
Jul. 21st, 2007 11:41 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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tamingthemuseTitle: Connections II
Fandom: None--OC
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Summary: Sybil goes on a road trip to her new home with her new mentor who's just a little bit different.
One of the first things that Jeanne taught me was not to be ashamed or afraid of my gifts.
“It’s a man’s world, baby girl, and if you ain’t got the looks or the tricks to make it, you’d better have something. If you got the gift, you can make it no matter what. Consider it a bonus from God, or whatever you worship.”
We stopped by MarieClaire’s place on the way out of town to pick up what little was there. There was a big sign on the front door that said it was condemned; truth be told, it should have been condemned a long time ago, but MarieClaire wouldn’t let anyone close enough to her house to tack the sign on the door. If you weren’t welcome, you got a horrible feeling as you passed through the gate a mile from her house that morphed into a sick feeling before you reached the turn in the lane.
Jeanne went for the sellable stuff while I concentrated on the books and other things that MarieClaire had taught me to use. Desiccated mushrooms in jars, a crystal ball and tarot cards that she taught me to read like a history book, herbs that had been dried and stored in fabric bags to mingle and mix into possets and asfetigo bags for those who came to request them. I packed them into a small satchel that I found under my old cot in the attic, along with the small doll that held a piece of my umbilical cord to keep me tied to this place. I didn’t need anyone finding it or any of the other mystical items; they already thought she was a witchwoman—they didn’t need to know how close they were to the truth.
I paused in her room to look around and didn’t hear Jeanne come up behind me. It startled me when she put her hands on my shoulders. “MarieClaire taught me everything that I knew about my powers. That’s why she picked me to mentor you farther along the path. I knew the minute that she died.”
So had I. I had been sitting with her for days as her breath rasped in her throat, more and more shallow and labored. Even as she waited for the other side to open up and take her, she still taught me things until her last breath. I hoped the asphodel hadn’t made it her last, but I knew in my heart when she had me lay the dried flowers on her chest that it was going to hasten her along the path; but I did as I was bid, never daring to second guess my foster mother and teacher.
Jeanne snatched up the boxes and I grabbed my boxed books and suitcase and we left the house. It was clean of anything that could have been seen as less than Christian so we were satisfied for the moment.
We stored the stuff in the trunk of her car and climbed into the front seat. I had no idea where we were going or how long it would take. I watched the woman as she drove, looking at her outside appearance for now.
She was a tall, gangly redhead with her hair piled up on top of her head in an elaborate hairdo. She didn’t look sensitive at all; maybe that’s why she was so successful in her job, which I soon found out was in a carnival as a fortune teller. She smoked cigarette after cigarette as she drove, lighting one after another with the cherry from the spent one as she talked about being a carny and learning the graft.
At first I thought she said craft and said so aloud. She laughed long and hard about that little gaffe then gave me a hard look over cat’s-eye sunglasses. “This is going to be a whole new world for you, Sybil. It isn’t like the protected life you were leading at MarieClaire’s and home. There will be men who will look at you and try their best to get into your pants, no matter that you’re only twelve. You’ve got bosoms and hair by now—to them, that’s plenty old enough.”
I nodded, understanding some of what she said but not all. She turned back to watch the road and said out of the corner of her mouth, “MarieClaire picked me next because I can teach you about the seedy side. I know that, she knew it too. I can show you how to make a living just by plucking thoughts out of people’s minds and using it against them. I can show you other things as well. How to use a lockpick, how to hot-wire a car, how to break into a safe if you need to and not leave a trace. It comes with living on the edge. After I’m done with you, I’ll pass you on to Abigail. She’ll show you how to make it work for you on the good side of life.”
Somewhere, I found my voice. “What does Abigail do for a living?”
She laughed again, grating on my nerves with that bawdy, raucous laugh of hers that would become as dear to me as MarieClaire’s had been. “Abby’s an opera singer, sweetheart. She’s as top as top can get.”
The rest of the trip was silent as I pondered what an opera singer would use gifts like ours for and why I was headed to an itinerant carnival in the first place.
When we pulled up outside the garish trailer, Jeanne climbed out of the car while the engine still knocked and ran on, climbed the rickety stairs to the door and tried the knob. The trailer was locked. Locked! Where in the world were we supposed to go now?
Instead of cursing or looking surprised, Jeanne laughed and reached into her hair, pulling out a bobby pin—one of those U shaped ones, not the tight clamp type. She pulled it open with her teeth and stuck it into the lock, using it as a jimmy, and before I knew it the door was standing open and she was motioning me inside.
“We’ll grab our shit out of the car in the morning. Come on, kid—you look exhausted.”
I didn’t even bother to answer her. I fell onto the couch face down and fell into a deep sleep that was full of red dust and strangers faces.
Fandom: None--OC
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Summary: Sybil goes on a road trip to her new home with her new mentor who's just a little bit different.
One of the first things that Jeanne taught me was not to be ashamed or afraid of my gifts.
“It’s a man’s world, baby girl, and if you ain’t got the looks or the tricks to make it, you’d better have something. If you got the gift, you can make it no matter what. Consider it a bonus from God, or whatever you worship.”
We stopped by MarieClaire’s place on the way out of town to pick up what little was there. There was a big sign on the front door that said it was condemned; truth be told, it should have been condemned a long time ago, but MarieClaire wouldn’t let anyone close enough to her house to tack the sign on the door. If you weren’t welcome, you got a horrible feeling as you passed through the gate a mile from her house that morphed into a sick feeling before you reached the turn in the lane.
Jeanne went for the sellable stuff while I concentrated on the books and other things that MarieClaire had taught me to use. Desiccated mushrooms in jars, a crystal ball and tarot cards that she taught me to read like a history book, herbs that had been dried and stored in fabric bags to mingle and mix into possets and asfetigo bags for those who came to request them. I packed them into a small satchel that I found under my old cot in the attic, along with the small doll that held a piece of my umbilical cord to keep me tied to this place. I didn’t need anyone finding it or any of the other mystical items; they already thought she was a witchwoman—they didn’t need to know how close they were to the truth.
I paused in her room to look around and didn’t hear Jeanne come up behind me. It startled me when she put her hands on my shoulders. “MarieClaire taught me everything that I knew about my powers. That’s why she picked me to mentor you farther along the path. I knew the minute that she died.”
So had I. I had been sitting with her for days as her breath rasped in her throat, more and more shallow and labored. Even as she waited for the other side to open up and take her, she still taught me things until her last breath. I hoped the asphodel hadn’t made it her last, but I knew in my heart when she had me lay the dried flowers on her chest that it was going to hasten her along the path; but I did as I was bid, never daring to second guess my foster mother and teacher.
Jeanne snatched up the boxes and I grabbed my boxed books and suitcase and we left the house. It was clean of anything that could have been seen as less than Christian so we were satisfied for the moment.
We stored the stuff in the trunk of her car and climbed into the front seat. I had no idea where we were going or how long it would take. I watched the woman as she drove, looking at her outside appearance for now.
She was a tall, gangly redhead with her hair piled up on top of her head in an elaborate hairdo. She didn’t look sensitive at all; maybe that’s why she was so successful in her job, which I soon found out was in a carnival as a fortune teller. She smoked cigarette after cigarette as she drove, lighting one after another with the cherry from the spent one as she talked about being a carny and learning the graft.
At first I thought she said craft and said so aloud. She laughed long and hard about that little gaffe then gave me a hard look over cat’s-eye sunglasses. “This is going to be a whole new world for you, Sybil. It isn’t like the protected life you were leading at MarieClaire’s and home. There will be men who will look at you and try their best to get into your pants, no matter that you’re only twelve. You’ve got bosoms and hair by now—to them, that’s plenty old enough.”
I nodded, understanding some of what she said but not all. She turned back to watch the road and said out of the corner of her mouth, “MarieClaire picked me next because I can teach you about the seedy side. I know that, she knew it too. I can show you how to make a living just by plucking thoughts out of people’s minds and using it against them. I can show you other things as well. How to use a lockpick, how to hot-wire a car, how to break into a safe if you need to and not leave a trace. It comes with living on the edge. After I’m done with you, I’ll pass you on to Abigail. She’ll show you how to make it work for you on the good side of life.”
Somewhere, I found my voice. “What does Abigail do for a living?”
She laughed again, grating on my nerves with that bawdy, raucous laugh of hers that would become as dear to me as MarieClaire’s had been. “Abby’s an opera singer, sweetheart. She’s as top as top can get.”
The rest of the trip was silent as I pondered what an opera singer would use gifts like ours for and why I was headed to an itinerant carnival in the first place.
When we pulled up outside the garish trailer, Jeanne climbed out of the car while the engine still knocked and ran on, climbed the rickety stairs to the door and tried the knob. The trailer was locked. Locked! Where in the world were we supposed to go now?
Instead of cursing or looking surprised, Jeanne laughed and reached into her hair, pulling out a bobby pin—one of those U shaped ones, not the tight clamp type. She pulled it open with her teeth and stuck it into the lock, using it as a jimmy, and before I knew it the door was standing open and she was motioning me inside.
“We’ll grab our shit out of the car in the morning. Come on, kid—you look exhausted.”
I didn’t even bother to answer her. I fell onto the couch face down and fell into a deep sleep that was full of red dust and strangers faces.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 07:10 pm (UTC)and tarot cards that she taught me to read like a history book Lovely phrase.
Can't wait to see where you take this.